Support offices

Library

The San Raffaele Library came into being towards the end of the 1970s as an integral part of the San Raffaele Hospital (OSR). As a centre of scientific documentation, its primary aim was to provide OSR clinicians and researchers with knowledge-based information, thanks to its vast collection of scientific journals. With the birth of the Vita-Salute University and its transfer to a new and more modern location in the DIBIT building, the library was completely transformed, with new spaces and services acting as support to the educational and research activities of students and teaching staff alike.

The Library presently offers over 10,000 e-journals, 23,500 e-books, and subscriptions to the most important scientific databases. The print holdings consist of around 60,000 volumes of scientific journals, and approximately 40,000 monographs. These numbers are growing steadily, in parallel with the development of the university courses.

Services

Members of the Institute can:

  • borrow books using the Self-checkout machine in the library,
  • request materials not kept by the Library using the Document Delivery Service, which provides short-term delivery.

The library is open to external visitors that wish to use its services for professional and educational reasons. Although they may not borrow books or use the licensed resources of the library, they have the chance to copy material, in accordance with the relevant laws.

An unique tool complements the Library’s resources: Yewno, a discovery tool based on machine learning, allowing to create and explore knowledge maps of inter-related concepts and to read the documents upon which they rest. Both Yewno Discover and Yewno Biomedical are available to our community.

Networks

The Library is part of the SBBL (“Sistema Bibliotecario Biomedico Lombardo”) Library Pool, established by the Lombardy Government, and being the first Italian pool experience for big libraries in the biomedical area. The Library adheres to Bibliosan, the network of the libraries of the 52 Research Hospitals (IRCCS, Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) established by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2004.